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Why do you need a VPN?
For many people, why they need a VPN starts with what is VPN software? Many people think that a home VPN solution is just a VPN browser, designed to hide your browsing activity. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Sure, when you connect to a VPN your connection is secure and reliable and you can hide what you are doing from your ISP, but VPN offers so much more.
For starters it can help with streaming. The best VPN service offers a secure VPN connection for the best and most popular streaming services and helps you view content that would otherwise be restricted to you because of your region or device location. A VPN gives you private internet access which is great if you work remotely and you don’t want sensitive information possibly being compromised or viewed by outside parties.
Your connection speed can also sometimes improve. Thanks to the VPN port type used by the cloud VPN service you decide to go with. And there is a wide range of home VPN programs available on the market – in this article we will be taking a look at HMA VPN (HideMyAss VPN) and seeing whether or not it’s a super VPN application for you to use.
Why should you use HMA VPN?
HMA VPN, now in it’s fifth version, has created a home VPN that has all new revamped features, along with a diagnostic mode that helps you fix the most common cloud VPN problems you may encounter. It also has a rather nifty feature that automatically connects you to the nearest server immediately, giving you a lightning fast VPN connection.
HMA VPN offers you a choice of a VPN connection to over 1000 servers in more than 150 countries. This may not be as much as other providers, but it doesn’t make HMA any less of a VPN service. It offers military grade security across its desktop and mobile applications and for piece of mind, it also has a built-in kill switch.
HMA adds VPN support for smart TVs and streaming boxes running Android TV – See Details
HMA VPN for Android TV is the newest addition to the HMA portfolio, which also includes a free Web Proxy, an IP Checker, a DNS Leak Test and WebRTC Test.
HMA VPN for Android TV also provides an IP Refresh option to help users overcome blocks by cycling through new IP addresses, a system-wide Kill Switch, Split-Tunnelling to let users choose which apps to secure through the encrypted HMA tunnel, and a revised logging policy with anonymisation of the last octets of any IP address connecting to HMA servers.
HMA’s support for Android TV coincides with the launch of HMA for Chrome and Firefox, free proxy extensions that disguise the location of the user to unblock websites and anonymously access news, TV shows and social networks from anywhere. HMA for Chrome and Firefox are part of HMA’s plan in 2020 to improve accessibility of privacy products by expanding its reach across different platforms.
Plans and Pricing
In terms of VPN service, there are three options available for HMA. It offers subscriptions in 12-month, 24-month and 36-month options. A 12-month subscription starts off at $5.99 a month and a 36-month subscription is $3.99 a month. So immediately the 36-month subscription offers the best value for money in the long term. As a home VPN program, it covers Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and Linux, as well as actual routers.
FAMILY PLAN
Want more from HMA? Of course you do! If you have a family, you know that privacy is a big deal. But while you might not get much privacy in your real life, the HMA Family Plan will ensure you and yours can all enjoy privacy online with up to 10 simultaneous connections. GET ALL THE DETAILS HERE
Furthermore, it’s one of the only cloud VPN programs that come with a 30-day money back guarantee. In terms of VPN support, it’s available 24/7 for added piece of mind. Payment methods include PayPal and all major credit cards, as well as some lesser known payment methods, such as UnionPay. There is also a business plan for your company which gives you multiple user accounts, but you must contact HMA support for more information about it.
You can see the latest pricing deals HERE
Real-world Testing
In this section we will take this cloud VPN software for a spin in the real world. We’ll look at how it performs for streaming, torrenting and overall browsing. Let’s start with using HMA as a VPN browser. When you connect to an outside server you won’t notice a speed drop in terms of your download speed, but the VPN connection will affect your upload speed and that may be quite noticeable. On other servers your download speed will drop, and this is where we see that HMA isn’t the best home VPN. On certain servers your speed to download will only drop a little but if you have a VPN connection with HMA to a server on the other side of the world then your download speed will drop more.
Other home VPN programs, such as NordVPN, do unlimited VPN speed much better than HMA VPN currently offers. But it is a cloud VPN that offers you many features, including a VPN browser, even if HMA VPN is a bit of hit and miss in this regard. When it comes to streaming it’s the same. You can’t use HMA to browse streaming services like Hulu or Amazon Prime Video. If you use HMA to open a VPN port for Netflix it won’t be a super VPN program to use. Whilst you can connect to Netflix, it won’t be a strong connection and it will regularly drop, but we found in tests that other streaming services, such as BBC iPlayer seems to work just fine.
For torrenting, HMA VPN does much better. It offers you a VPN connection to high speed optimised servers for your P2P connections. You can pick the best server easily from within the HMA cloud VPN app and it just takes one click. However, it isn’t anonymous when it comes to torrenting and partial logs are kept by HMA.
We already mentioned that HMA offered a home VPN application with military grade security. This comes courtesy of AES 256-bit encryption. In terms of the VPN ports used, they use several secure protocols, UDP and TCP OpenVPN, L2TP/IPsec, and PPTP, which are all available for you to choose from so that you can get the best VPN connection and the fastest VPN performance possible out of HMA.
HMA is a VPN which gives you private internet access and as a VPN browser it does the job. But for other VPN features, it isn’t quite yet the best VPN program that you can buy right now.
In Conclusion
To conclude, HMA is not quite the fastest VPN, nor is it the best VPN program. But it does offer a great VPN service with a wide range of VPN connections available. We were pleased with the customer support and wide range of pricing plans on offer. We were also happy with the money back guarantee. What we were not happy with though was the VPN connections used for streaming and the somewhat lackluster performance against the top streaming services.
HMA also doesn’t give you a VPN with unlimited speed either. So, there are other home VPN programs out there that give you the fastest VPN and a wide range of VPN connections to worldwide servers. But if you just want an affordable VPN browser for all your devices and you aren’t interested in streaming then give HMA VPN a try. It’s a great little VPN browser and a good cloud VPN to use for torrenting too. But if you want the best VPN to use for streaming then you may want to try something like NordVPN instead.